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@Riot What thoughts went into the development of Black cleaver?

You gave an item that gives good damage early game a way to keep scaling into late game and prevent any real counter-building

Survivability and damage

You gave an item with such immediate and long term benefits no reason not to rush it. People used to rush phage because it gave both health and AD. This is a bit extreme.

Extreme utility to ADCs

ADCs were supposed to be nerfed S3, but a well organized team containing a bruiser/assassin with BC and an ADC with LW causes them to actually get a very large jump in power, even if lifesteal, attack speed, and movement speed all took a hit.

Was there any input that caused you to bypass these obvious design flaws, or were they simply overlooked?

What was wrong with stacking flat reduction being applied by all forms of physical damage that % reduction fixed?

[I]You gave an item that gives good damage early game a way to keep scaling into late game and prevent any real counter-building

Randuin's Omen. Hard counters Black Cleaver.

Quote:

Maulkrieg:

Survivability and damage

You gave an item with such immediate and long term benefits no reason not to rush it. People used to rush phage because it gave both health and AD. This is a bit extreme.

People rushed Phage because of the slow proc. The item itself is relatively efficient for raw stats, but not specifically so.

Quote:

Maulkrieg:

Extreme utility to ADCs

ADCs were supposed to be nerfed S3, but a well organized team containing a bruiser/assassin with BC and an ADC with LW causes them to actually get a very large jump in power, even if lifesteal, attack speed, and movement speed all took a hit.

Black Cleaver does not provide any multiplicative stats, so it is ill-suited for an ideal ranged AD carry build. It provides build-up mechanics, which is ill-suited for an ideal ranged AD carry build. It functions similarly to Aegis of the Legion; a teammate grabs it to increase your DPS while being efficient for them.

Quote:

Maulkrieg:

What was wrong with stacking flat reduction being applied by all forms of physical damage that % reduction fixed?

Retaining the 45 armor reduction: The item still has 20 armor penetration, meaning the one item would negate up to 65 armor, which is extremely high during the early mid-game when you're likely to have it.

Having 25 armor reduction instead: The item would quickly become meaningless in the face of a single chain vest; you would spent ~2500 gold for an advantage that disappears when the enemy spends ~700 gold.

Randuin's Omen. Hard counters Black Cleaver.How does Omen counter BC? Attack speed and movement speed are hardly the problem when it comes to BC users. Armor hardly helps the situation, considering S3 increased cost in addition to your effective value being diminished further due to BC. Even if it were effective, you're suggesting 5 people should spend over 3k to counter a 3k item one person bought?

People rushed Phage because of the slow proc. The item itself is relatively efficient for raw stats, but not specifically so.

People got it because it helped in trades top plane. Trades are not about chasing. Slows are more helpful when you're winning lane, with the exception of auto-chase bruisers with no innate cc.

Black Cleaver does not provide any multiplicative stats, so it is ill-suited for an ideal ranged AD carry build. It provides build-up mechanics, which is ill-suited for an ideal ranged AD carry build. It functions similarly to Aegis of the Legion; a teammate grabs it to increase your DPS while being efficient for them.

I said the ADC has LW, not BC. Please put more thought into your refutes.

Retaining the 45 armor reduction: The item still has 20 armor penetration, meaning the one item would negate up to 65 armor, which is extremely high during the early mid-game when you're likely to have it.I never said that 45 had to be the value, nor did I say that it would keep the flat pen. Balance is a thing, you know. Values can change.

Having 25 armor reduction instead: The item would quickly become meaningless in the face of a single chain vest; you would spent ~2500 gold for an advantage that disappears when the enemy spends ~700 gold.45 armor pen would not be a problem since the item costs 3k gold. That's ample time to build a chain vest. You, spending 3k gold, force your lane opponent to spend 720 on something other than damage and MR to mitigate APC's strong-point during the game. If you're a strong early game bruiser, you're likely forcing them to spend about 2k in order to safely farm against you. I don't see the issues with this. It allows for counterplay without nullifying the advantage from buying the item.

Tried to quote the response about Randuin's doing nothing, but forums don't want to play along. While Randuin's *does* help, I'm really gonna agree with you on this one that it's barely noticable to have armor this season.

The problem is simply that % pen items stack too effectively, even though it is multplicative not additive stacking. The ONLY problem I have with BC is that the stacking debuff was switched to % not flat. The fact that % pen is now calculated BEFORE flat pen just makes the problem even worse. Switch the stacking debuff back to flat pen and BC is still good, but probably no longer a MUST HAVE on every AD character, and then building multiple armor items (dedicating not only gold but valuable item slots just to surviving) is suddenly a good option again. As it is now anyone with at least 9 points in offense and a BC+LW will shred through any ammount of armor stacking

False. Armor is useful and will help when Black Cleaver enters the field.

It didn't help beforehand when the flat armor penetration could be stacked, but that's been addressed.

~Not~ having armor against a black cleaver doesn't help you in the slightest.

Regardless of whether or not armor "helps", one gets better slot and cost efficiency building hp and atma's than gunning soley for enough armor to give respectable mitigation to physical damage champs. Armor in its current state is simply a bonus to the attack speed slows and hp that the most commonly purchased armor items give, rather than the most desired stat. 300 armor is easily mitigated to around 100, varying slightly depending on runes.

Tell me when in S1 or S2 black cleaver, or even brutalizer was considered a strong item. Every time I remember seeing it, it was on AD casters or people with insane AD steroids. Even on those same champions, I never remember one buying BC. Nobody outside of kayle and xin bought it, and only rarely did xin.

Please inform me of when AP and AD being able to bypass around 70 (with runes) of their respective resistance was considered unbalanced or even utilized at high level play.

There used to be a trade off for that damage, at least for AP. No merc treads, not many of either tanky or damage items, and having a midgame item rotting in your inventory. None of which AD champions had to deal with to the same extent. Combine ArPen runes with sunder mastery and you're already almost one item slot of efficiency ahead of AP in S2. Haunting guise compared terribly to brutalizer even then. Now comparing both item's upgrades, you should see why BC is a bit out of place.

There is no justifying the item, especially since its being abused by bruisers more than AD casters.